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Washington asks Russia for a big favor

Submitted by gjohnsit on Tue, 06/26/2018 - 3:08pm

I would say that Washington politicians are shameless, except that this is beyond shameless. You have to be totally divorced from reality to do this.

Despite thorny U.S.-Russia relations, the U.S. may press Russia and other producers to expand on their just-announced deal to increase crude output, as the U.S. attempts to cut off Iran from the world oil market.

That's right. "Russia, we need you to pump more oil and drive down the price of your primary export, thus putting a squeeze on your budget, in order to make up for the oil that we are taking off the market by sanctioning Iran, who did nothing to deserve those sanctions.
Oh, and BTW, don't take the new sanctions we just put on you personally. It's only because we want regime change in Iran and Russia."
Shameless.

There are other reasons why we want Russia to pump more oil.

However, Perry told reporters Monday the agreement “may be a little short” of what is needed to prevent shortages. Analysts expect sanctions against Iran to remove about 500,000 barrels a day from the world market by the end of the year.

But other outages are also a concern. Venezuela, for example, was down about a half million barrels a day this year, as of May. Libya lost 450,000 barrels per day in June because of attacks on its two largest export terminals.

...“It’s not a big leap to think he’s going to ask Novak for more oil after today’s commentary," said John Kilduff of Again Capital. Kilduff said the request would be unusual, “but these are strange times.”
Cohen said, “The broader thing is the sanctions have a potential to get much worse on Russia. I don’t know how friendly a meeting it will be."

Ya think?!

The Saudis have already promised a huge surge in oil production after India warned of consequences if they didn't.
So who has the leverage here?

At the very same moment we are asking Russia for a huge favor, we are sanctioning a NATO ally for doing business with Russia.

A top U.S. State Department official warned Turkey on Tuesday that its purchase of Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets would be jeopardized if it does not drop a plan to buy S-400 missile defense systems from Russia.

If it buys the system, Turkey would also be subject to sanctions under a bill President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, Wess Mitchell, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, testified in the Senate.

Congress is extremely unhappy with Turkey, and recently sent them a stern letter.

Pentagon officials have also expressed frustration with signs of an Erdogan rapprochement with Iran.

Last week, members of the U.S. Congress issued an open letter criticizing Erdogan.

“Contrary to its NATO obligations, Turkey is actively operating to undermine U.S. interests around the world. Turkey’s repeated military actions against American interests, relentless degradation of human rights and democracy under President Erdogan, and clear intention to build a strategic partnership with Russia have completely eroded the U.S.-Turkey relationship,” they said.

I can't help but laugh any time politicians in Washington lecture people about human rights.

Comments

We are the economic colony of China and the political colony of Saudi Arabia.

You'd think they'd(EDITED for clarity) the US government would be happy for an ally to have the Russian defense system so they could examine and analyze it. But that wouldn't suit whoever makes the US version.

We need to take back our government and step one is to remove big money from government. You can't remove all money because campaigns cost money. But if Bernie did nothing else, he showed that an effective campaign can be run on small donations and only small donations. He didn't lose the nomination because he didn't have enough money as we all know.

I want the Republicans to do this too, so we can campaign in the realm of ideas instead of corruption.

Does anybody believe this smokescreen? We stiffed Turkey like we stiffed the Kurds. Now the war pigs are going to blame our mistakes on them. Our 'allies' are getting buyers remorse at this point. US is getting desperate. Losing control of the flow of oil (and importance of the dollar) is sidelining our agenda.

Ben Norton points to an article that seems to claim that Russia is for increasing production as Iran tries to pump out a lot of oil before sanctions. There is some economic cause and effect here that I am not getting. Or the piece is just propaganda. But the impression I get is this has nothing to do with bending to Trump, but some oil economics I don't understand.

Moscow and Riyadh need to coordinate their positions ahead of the crucial June 22 OPEC meeting in Vienna. What complicates the upcoming meeting, and what Russia and Saudi Arabia will be facing as a unified front, is a lack of consensus among the 24 countries that signed the agreement in 2016. Russia specifically may find it hard balancing its own interests and those of Tehran, whose output is likely to fall by 900,000 barrels next year because the United States has reimposed sanctions. In these circumstances, Iran would want to export as much oil as it still can at higher prices, something Russia and Saudi Arabia seem determined to undermine by increasing global output. The latter two countries have agreed that it is necessary to increase output; however, the mechanics and extent of their understanding are likely to remain unknown until the Vienna meeting.